Up Close, Yet Too Personal
by Doctor Helicopter
Summary: After the events of Borderlands 3, the Vault Hunters once again go their separate ways to form their own paths. Moze begins her path as a mercenary, filling in her lust of explosions and loot. A hunting mission goes all too well, and she ends up meeting a bored, restless mercenary sniper. She wants to go up close and personal, and he wants to keep the distance. A story set to boom!
1. Prologue

"It's been a slow day today, hasn't it?" he muttered. Some brave adventurer usually tries to explore the carcass of the Jacob's family jewel. After the removal of the vault key, Wainwright Jacobs abandoned the crashed ship since it wasn't worth the effort for recovery. It became a scavenger heaven for those on Eden-6, and many prospectors began to chase for uncovered treasure and loot. It was the poor man's gold rush.

The funny thing about the gold rush was the arguments over pieces of scrap that lead to petty, murderous feuds. He still had standards to uphold, and he wasn't gonna turn into some crazed, serial killing raider yet. For now, he is a reliable mercenary taking money to kill for those who don't have the skill, stomach, or manpower. He placed his rifle on the table before taking another beer from the fridge next to him.

His little mini-base was perched up on some ruined piece of the ship, separated by the force of the crash into a cluster of trees holding it up on its side. After some re-arranging and cleaning, he made it into his second home, metaphorically. Literally, its his seventy-sixth home if you don't count the times he bummed off hotels on Promethea. After a while of losing so many things, he learned to keep just about everything in his backpack.

He pulled up his ECHO-3, dwindling his meaningless existence with the daily news. Local sacrifices and forgettable manufacturer dirt filled the screen once again. He navigated to the nature channel. The annual jabber mating season, spider-ant cake recipes for the average psycho, and the release of _Jambo: Rumble in the Jungle _were front-runners to the echo-page. He might want a ticket, but he is banned from the Buff Film Buff's Great Movie Theater of Greatness and Excellence. His movies aren't that good for those type of prices.

He set the beer down on the table and picked the rifle back up. A look through the scope showed a couple of jabbers running towards the local mating grounds. He ignored them, preferring not to waste high-caliber ammunition on horny apes. Cali , the name he called his sniper rifle, was too good for them. She's been there for him too long to be betrayed like that. His old gear from his Hyperion service has done him wonders over the years.

After a couple minutes, he found a sight to behold from the comfort of seven-hundred yards away. An Iron Bear mechanical suit strapped with hunted jabber carcasses accompanied a young woman soldier, filled to the brim with all kinds of explosive weapons. Vladof may throw endless amounts of grunts at you with little to no training, but they don't joke around with their Iron Bear Divisions. They have enough firepower to bring down buildings; the same buildings that he inhabits as a marksman. She wasn't a target worth pursuing.

Upon a closer inspection, he realizes a grave error on the part of the young woman. These are all female jabbers. After two-hundred yards towards his position, he could smell the pheromones of the dead females. Suddenly, the screeches of hundreds of sex-derived jabbers echoed throughout the forest. The Vladof soldier hops on her Iron Bear, and it begins to go into a full-on sprint. A rampage of jabbers was heading her way, and he wasn't going to be apart of it.

Until his echo received a call...


	2. Bloody Beginnings

He didn't even have a choice. The ECHO call brute forced its way through the device. Stupid wireless viper drives have killed the protection market, and his browser history is ripe for the taking.

"Hey there, I happen to be in need of shelter during these troubling times. Mind helping a hand, stranger?" she asked in a innocent, fake tone. The jabbers were beginning to close the distance.

"Yeah, maybe not now. I didn't cook for two, let alone the thousands of friends behind your tail." he quipped. It was entertaining to watch the madness unfold through the safety of his scope.

"Alright, this therapy advice is horseshit. Let me in before I crack your fun tree house like a pinata. I'm gonna take the first swing and see if some candy falls out. Forget the curve-ball, Iron Bear, let's give him the heater!"

Her tone had shifted into something scary, and he knew that he might need to start looking for his seventy-seventh home. The mech pulled its rocket arm into the air and aimed directly at him. From the middle of the rocket pods, a single shot burst through the sky and punctured the base's front wall. He took a look to his right, and the place's defining feature was its identity of being a literal hole in the wall. The worst part was the complete removal of his air conditioning unit which he needed for the upcoming summer. This situation was much like the last summer, and it was getting way too hot.

When he went to look back at the Vladof soldier, he saw her take out a fancy, hulking Torgue shotgun. She fired a shot from the mighty behemoth, and the explosive shells tore the front wall of the jabber army. The once horny, living jabbers were turned into a combination of red paste and detached limbs with a hint of explosive powder residue. She would fire an entire magazine, but the jabbers would keep climbing over their dead brothers to obtain some sweet love pheromones. Hoes over bros was not only a popular agriculture statement, but it was a way for life for many animals. She pulled an ECHO to her head while she exchanged a fresh mag into the gun, and his ECHO lit up as she called him. She was only a hundred yards away when he received it.

"So how's it going up there? I'll give you a couple more seconds to clean the shit from your pants before I take a final swing at it. Jabbers love sweet, meaty candy just like you. Time for-" she taunted.

"I'm lowering a ladder for you to climb up. I'm allowing you, a dangerous pyrotechnic lunatic bitch, to hop aboard man-cave number seventy-six. For your information, I go commando on weekends. Prepare for the holy view, ya damn she-devil." he groaned, and began to make his way to the opening duct.

He decided regretfully. He threw the rope ladder so it extended to the top of the Iron Bear. Hopefully, she'd miss the ladder and fall. He's too lazy to sabotage it with the lotion near his bed. Hell, the reason he became a marksman was so he didn't have to run a lot. His father always said he was special, but it wasn't in a good way.

"I wouldn't mind for some help from up there either, marshmallow. Marksman are always squishy ones when it comes to firefights. I'll promise not to kill ya if you do." She asked, more like demanded.

"It's not my fault if I accidentally aim at a location near your head. I was just trying to help." he joked.

"You hear that Iron Bear? He wants to kill me! What are you gonna do about that? What's that. Iron Bear? You're gonna launch your entire missile silo if he does that? Wow, that's so thoughtful."

"It was a joke, calm down. I enjoy not being homeless."

_I really am special, aren't I? It was an actual good idea that would have worked. I should seek some therapy or something. Dammit. _

He took aim towards the front runner of the jabber race for love. He pulled the trigger, and the regular bullet did the regular kinetic energy dispersion on the jabber forehead. _Boring. _He used the technology in his gloves to create one of his many special bullets. He pushed the specially-crafted bullet in the chamber, pushed it the bolt in, and took aim at another horny, hopeless jabber. He pulled the trigger, and the bullet entered the jabber's skull. The bullet separated copies of itself, and they ricocheted into the skull of five other jabber. _Cool, but it's still a little boring. _He created another bullet in his hands. He inserted the bullet back in the chamber, pushed the bolt in, and took aim at one bad-ass jabber. He was a chunky one, but he sure could run fast.

He pulled the trigger. A molten bullet erupted from the barrel, leaving it in the color of bright orange. It rammed into the jaw of the jabber, and it exploded into a wave of hot magma which consumed many of his fellow members behind him. It burned the flesh off the jabbers' bodies and ate through the feet of the many jabbers who had stepped into the pool of fiery death. They would fall to their knees in agonizing pain before being consumed by the magma pit. He liked his jabber meat a little more cooked than well done. She obviously likes it in a smoothie form, though.

* * *

She was closing in on the ladder. The jabbers were getting closer and closer to consuming them in a fur-ridden hellscape. The thrill was never greater, and the fun was about to reach its climax. The taste of danger brings an excitement like no other. The vault rewarded one with insane loot beyond one's dreams, but it also gave one the endless desire for even more. She tied her grenade bandoleers together and attached a charge to create a makeshift bomb. She threw it inside the cockpit of Iron Bear.

"She's going for it! She's at the fifty, the forty, the thirty, the twenty, the ten, and—"

She leaps onto the ladder, grasping the rungs for her life. Iron Bear continues to run, and the army of jabbers overwhelm it after about forty more yards.

"Touchdown!"

She presses the switch on the detonator. Iron Bear is enveloped by a ball of fire and broken metal. The jabbers are obliterated from the blast or lacerated by the flying shrapnel. Their blood covers the sky for a quick moment before it falls back down to earth. The blood of the jabbers rain upon our hero over the sunset horizon, covering them and the land around them blood red. She climbs up the ladder into the newly painted mini-base. She finds him reverse sitting on a chair, facing towards the hatch. His head was covered by some Hyperion gas mask and a balaclava. He wore nothing else.

"Hey, nice place you got here. Seems pretty comfy compared to Vladof sniper dens. A pretty homey feel to it. You don't mind if-"

"Take a shower? Please, be my guest. I've come to terms that you were gonna stain the floor. Towels are in the cabinet. Help yourself. But before you go, what's your name?" he asked.

"Name's Moze. Don't wear it out." She smirked as she made her way to the bathroom. When she got to the door, she turned back to look at the man. He wasn't kidding about going commando after all. She giggled a little bit at the funny character before going to clean herself up. Their little adventure was over for now.


	3. Breaking Ice

"Get me another beer, Ghost."

"We ran out of cans a couple days ago."

"Fuck you, your kidding me..."

Moze is sprawled on the couch, and beer cans accompany our drunken hero. Ghost is sitting on his sniper perch, wiping down Cal, and eating some chips. The heater emits a small hum, and the radio plays _Tiny Tina's Bunkers and Bad-asses: Episode 9: Titanic and Torgue Weaponry _in the background. No more beer remains (that she knows of). It's been four days since she first entered the tree house.

"You're definitely lying. Where do ya got it? The bathroom? Your bed? Tell me ya lying bastard!" She chucks an empty beer can at the marksman.

"You drank it all, again. If you want me to go on a beer run, you're paying for it this time."

"You know I don't have any money left."

"You're supposed to be a legendary vault hunter who acquired riches upon riches. What did you blow it on? Must've been something crazy to put you in this bad of a state, financially."

"I'll only tell you if ya let me answer three questions, and you tell me where your secret stash is around here. I know you got it."

"Two questions and a cigarette."

"Deal. Wait, why do you have cigarettes if you wear that mask-thingy?"

He opens a pack, tosses the cigarette onto the table, and said, "I don't like people recognizing me in case they feel the urge to skinning me alive as a rug later on, and the magnifying instrument works pretty well. It gives a nice HUD overlay and everything. You might get drunk again one day and think that I'm some killer giant penguin who threatens the universe. It wouldn't be the first time."

She lights the cigarette in her mouth. A long drag passes through her lungs before letting the smoke leave. After she picks up the echo device, she begins messing around with various apps.

"So what's your real name? Ghost must've been your call-sign or something similar."

"I can't tell you my real name. It would be a very poor choice on my part. It's kinda like if I walked into a starving skag's den in my birthday suit. Although, my call-sign was Ghost 1. I got it from being pretty sly about where I set up. It took a sharp eye to find my whereabouts. I've gotten a little lax about actually camouflaging myself after I left Hyperion. It still comes natural to me, though."

"Since you just deflected my question, I'll ask you another. How much money do you have?"

"17 bucks. Why do you ask?" He turns around to look at her, wondering why she would waste a question like that.

"You wouldn't mind doing a job to stack those pockets a little, then?" She grins a devilish smile at the marksman. He gives this idea a chance.

"Alright, what do you have in mind?"

She tosses him the ECHO that was in her hands.

* * *

_Urgent Help Needed: I need my son to be picked up from "school". _

_ I am offering a large sum of money for anyone who can pick up my son from "school". I need you to show up to my residence with transportation fit for enough seats for my son, yourself, and other people you bring by. _

_ -Mister Shaky, 9237 Pomegranate Street, Shipton, Ambershire._

* * *

"You know this guy is insane, right? He's one of those off-the-grid hunters who got cabin fever real bad. That road doesn't even exist, and the city is a play on his house. He lives in a weird shipping crate fort. It's kinda nice looking, actually."

"Just hear me out. What if he isn't lying or delusional? If we just do this simple mission for him, he gives us this big fortune, and we go our separate ways. If he doesn't give us this large fortune, he might give us something at least close to it. He's one of these honorable hunting people who have values and morals and other sentimental junk. It's worth checking out, at least."

He hasn't been on a grand quest for a long time. He thought that he would settle down and scrap by as a mercenary. It still tugs at him, though. The desire for riches and loot beyond one's wildest dreams. It tugs at all of us, really. We all want to live the best life we only dream of, but we have things that hold us down from achieving them. He looked at the gloomy sky of Eden-6, thinking about the risk and reward of the mission.

"Alright, let's go. It's for the best."

He pulls out his car keys, throws the ladder down, and packs up some gear for the road. Moze throws the lit cigarette butt onto the ground and extinguishes it with her boot. She slides down the ladder, and Ghost soon follows her after a couple minutes. He presses a button on the car key fob, and the ladder is broken down into digital particles, vanishing from the physical realm.

"So, where's your car? Unless you want to carry him on your shoulders."

He points to a set of bushes. Moze looks at him, concerned about his mental state. They begin to walk over to the set of bushes, and he begins to start pulling foliage out of the bush. The excavation reveals a brown technical, fitted with a .50 caliber on the gunner seat.

"I told you I was a natural at camouflaging things. You could tear apart my entire house, and you would never find my secret stash."

"You deflected my question, and I decided to stop paying attention after the third sentence. Also, that secret stash isn't secret anymore."

"Fair enough, but you're lying about the secret stash."

"It was the combination of beers, money, jack-off magazines, and old pictures of yourself."

"How did you fin-"

"I slammed into the fridge in a drunken stupor, and everything fell out. It was pretty funny, actually. I fell onto the ground with a couple bottles around me. It was almost like Christmas."

"So the money you gave me for the beer money was..."

"Yeah, that was yours. He-he. Pretty good night if I do say for myself. You can take off that mask if ya want, too. You got quite a memorable face."

"I'm fine. Let's just go to Mister Shaky's residence before you begin to read off my teenage diary pages."

Moze laughs as she jumps into the gunner seat. Ghost enters the technical and uses the keys to start the engine. They pull out of the grouping of trees and begin to drive down the road to the residence of Mister Shaky. Moze unloads a grouping of .50 cal shots at the local jabber population along the way as Ghost starts to accelerate through Ambershire.


	4. A Friendly Visit

After a little trip, they arrived at Mister Shaky's abode. While the shipping fort idea was still the same, a boat-like figure occupied where the house once was. Moze hopped out of the gunner's seat as Ghost put the technical in park. After he climbed out of the technical, he applied a green tarp on-top of it and began to camouflage the technical from the naked eye. The day was coming from its slumber, and the sun's light flowed onto Eden-6.

"So, is this the place?"

"Sure is. Would you mind passing me that branch on the ground?"

"Only if you got another cig. I think I get the direction where this adventure is heading."

"I only got two left, though. Gimme some more branches and it's a deal."

"Fine, but it better not be waterlogged."

She picks up some branches alongside the dirt road and throws them down at Ghost's feet. He pulls out his nearly-empty pack of cigarettes and tosses one to Moze. As he continues to cover up the technical with an assortment of foliage, Moze lights the cigarette in her mouth. It takes a couple minutes for it to be completely covered, and they begin to head toward Mister Shaky's shipping crate boat house fort.

As they approach the trail up the hill, there are numerous cameras mounted around the area. The all-seeing eye knows nothing of falsehood, and the cameras track their movements from every angle. Moze shoots a confused look at Ghost, but the only response from him is a neutral shrug. They make their way to the door, side-by-side. Ghost looks at Moze for a second before taking another look at the door.

"You got some red on you." Ghost quips, almost in a teasing way.

While she took a look down at her leather jacket, Ghost sucker-punches her across the face. Rightfully blindsided by the surprise attack, she falls to the left of the door. Ghost knocks on the door before he takes a dive to the right of the door. Two rounds of buckshot rip through the door, flinging it open on its hinges.

"Die you evil monsters of human decent, or I'll be damned to an eternity of servitude to Dog! Bah! I no longer need anymore evil human specimens for the great ARK! Begone!"

Ghost picks himself off the ground, and he takes a look at the eccentric character in front of him. Mister Shakey is a bald, older man outfitted with a Hyperion engineer mechanical suit. His hair protrudes from every typical spot in a hysterical, anomalous extent. He may have passed as the jabber if he wasn't bald. This was the life of a rich paranoid shut-in, powerful enough to take on the world on defensive terms. He was crazed enough to be a threat, but too far out of it to be useful.

"It is me, Mister Shaky. I am Major Digtierev!" Ghost jogs his memory in the voice of a terrible, horrendous U-Cranian accent. He takes out an old coupon for Dynasty Diners in Prometha and shows it to Mister Shaky. He holsters his shotgun and tries to remember Major Digterev, hero of U-Crane. After a moment passes, he remembers the exploits of our supposed hero.

"Ah, it is the Hero of U-Crane! I remember you, now. I'm fairly sorry about the harsh welcome. You never can be sure about people these days. After they made those cloning stations, identity theft is quite the common occurrence. You need help with another compass?"

"No, the last compass you gave still does fine. I'm here to offer my assistance for the advert you posted on the ECHO-NET. Something about getting transportation for one's child, yes?"

"Ah, yes. My son sent me one of these ECHO-NET texts about needing some help getting from his school. Since I don't own any silly vehicles, I thought I might contract a citizen around these parts to do it instead. I would be honored to have you pick up my son. He seemed to be in trouble, but I'm sure it's nothing you can't handle!" He howls with a mixture of laughing and coughing. After he pulls out his ECHO-1 device, he shows Ghost the coordinates to pick his son up.

"Speaking of trouble, it seems that your wife is coming back from your friendly face-five. She doesn't seem so happy, though."

Ghost looks up from the ECHO-1. Before he is able to question Mister Shaky's statement, he is tackled by a hot-headed, anger-radiating Moze. She manages to get on-top of him, using her arms to choke him by the neck, and submitting punches in between choking time for a maximum pain-to-satisfaction ratio. During all of this, she berates him with a flurry of curses and vulgar threats.

"Ya fucking callous prick, punching me out of the blue. I ought to skin you alive with my knife and hang your carcass as a room decoration. I'll take the meat out of your bones to create a meat pie for the psycho orphanage! I'll use your bones to create a bone-cycle, and your intestines will be the rubber for the tires! You stupid fuckwit half-brain cunt! I'll shove a stick through your ass, and roast you like a kebab! How about I turn you into an abstract art piece, huh? Twist you in three different dimensions and put you on display? Maybe, I'll cryo-freeze your body and put a ton of pretty dresses on your frozen body! Ya little bitch!"

As he gasped for air between removing Moze's arms for a split second and the punches she semi-occasionally laid on, he tried to explain himself. It took a painful minute to get it through her head.

"I'm sorry!" He exclaimed before taking another punch to the jaw.

"It's for a reason!"

Another punch.

"I had to improvise!"

Another choke-fest.

"It was a stupid idea!"

Another punch. The cycle would repeat itself for a solid minute.

Moze was fairly exhausted after beating Ghost, trying to get his blood juice to satisfy the taste for revenge. She got off Ghost and turned to face Mister Shaky. Mister Shaky was laughing his ass off, and his skag was dancing along his master's happiness.

"Mister Dietierev, your taste in woman is like your taste in drink! You never settle! Haha!"

Moze takes a look back on Ghost, still reeling in pain on the ground. She got the message.

"Ah, yes. I just had to handle a dispute with him."

"Yes, my wife used to do that to me after I'd leave the light on. Quite the times, I must say."

"Hehe, yeah. Nice to meet you, Mister Shaky. We'll be on our way to the mission, now. Sorry for the disturbance."

Moze drags the limp, comatose body of Ghost down the trail as she waved bye to Mister Shaky. She took Ghost's ECHO-3 and keys before she threw him into the gunner's seat. With the keys in the ignition and Ghost slumped over the machine gun, she drove to the address of the 'school'.

* * *

"Huh, where the fuck are we?"

"You awake, buster? We're here. The school is actually this cave, and the trouble is more than I anticipated."

They were perked up on a hillside that granted views of a rock formations and other things associated with the jungles of Eden-6. Moze tossed him her binoculars, and he looked into them. He found a cave, surrounded by multiple heavily-armored black vans and a good amount of guards. The sunlight had vanished, and it was evident that night had fallen.

"How long have they been there?"

"They arrived ten minutes ago. I was gonna inject you with some special stuff in five more minutes to wake you from your slumber."

"Huh. And you aren't still upset about the thing, right?"

"I'm satisfied. For now."

"It was a host of things. Anger from raiding my house of all beverages, stealing my stashes, and forgetting to tell you about my identity in relation to Mister Smiley."

"Stupid."

"Yeah, yeah. While you failed to come up with an original insult, I got a pretty good plan I cooked up. You got that mech still, right?"

* * *

"You know what's better than those Dynasty Burgers?"

"I dunno, Tim. I liked the Tannis Fish Tacos from El Dragon's Restaurant than the burgers."

"Nah, man. It's them cakes we had back at Pandora. I forgot where we gotten, though."

"You know what you did forget? The night-vision goggles and the spot-lights."

"Somebody in administration booked them for a workplace laser-tag team-building exercise. It ain't my fault, man."

A whirring sound begins to crescendo through the air, getting louder and louder.

"Hey, Tim. You hear tha-"

A barrage of bullets pierce through the entrance of the cave. They flood the trespassers of the abode, painting the vans with the color red. The guards that once stood there are no longer, but those who survived behind the vans still remain. They opened fire at the monster hidden in the treeline, hoping to kill the beast within the jungle. The response to the reaction was one of explosive temper, and rockets soon bombarded them in scary quantities. During the continuous rain of bullets and rockets, two figures can be seen strolling past the ambushed, distracted guards and making their way into the cave system's entrance.


End file.
